In the case of adhering an emblem to be used in automotive exteriors or the like to an automobile or the like, it has been a common practice to employ a double-faced adhesive.
As an example of these existing techniques, there has been known a manufacturing method for ornaments and emblems which comprises: the base forming step wherein a base, which is made of the flexible plastic and has a pattern comprising a string of characters or a definite shape formed into a lifted state from the surrounding surface, is formed; the a metal layer forming step wherein a definite metal layer is formed on either one side of the front surface side or the back surface side of the base made of the flexible plastic; the mold-releasing paper attaching step wherein a definite adhesive layer is provided on the back surface side of the base made of the flexible plastic and provided with the metal layer and a definite mold-releasing paper is provided on the front surface of the adhesive layer; and the punching step wherein the pattern section of the base is punched and cut into a state wherein the pattern section is left on the mold-releasing paper (see, JP-A-2002-331800).
Such an existing emblem for adhesion as described above is produced by laminating an emblem material, a double-faced adhesive and a mold-releasing paper and then punching the emblem material and the double-faced adhesive at the same time into a desired shape. Therefore, after the punching, a laminate of the emblem and the double-faced adhesive in the desired shape is adhered to the mold-releasing paper on the surface of the double-faced adhesive opposite to the emblem side and thus the desired positional relationship is maintained. According to this technique, however, it is difficult to punch out a relatively hard emblem material and a relatively soft double-faced adhesive at the same time. Additionally, in the case of punching out an emblem material and a double-faced adhesive at the same time, the emblem piece and the double-faced adhesive piece are inevitably in the same size without having any difference, which brings about problems that when the adhesive unit for emblem is adhered to an adherend surface, the double-faced adhesive piece becomes easily visible from outside so that the appearance is damaged or dust and debris frequently stick thereto. Further, an emblem is usually subjected to a surface-treatment such as plating. In the case where an emblem material, which has been surface-treated prior to punching into a desired shape, a double-faced adhesive and a mold-releasing paper are laminated and then the emblem material and the double-faced adhesive are punched at the same time into a desired shape, since the cutting surface of the emblem is exposed as a non-surface-treated part after the punching, it becomes necessary to surface-treat the exposed part again. Moreover, when the punched emblem piece is surface-treated again, there might arise an additional problem that since the emblem piece and the double-faced adhesive piece have been unified in a desired shape via lamination in the existing technique as described above, the surface-treating agent adheres to the double-faced adhesive piece and thus lowers the adhesive force.
Under these circumstances, the inventors paid their attention to the technique wherein individual emblem pieces each having a desired shape are connected via a runner and adhesive unit for emblem having the desired shape (the adhesive unit including a double-faced adhesive provided with mold-releasing papers on both faces thereof) is adhered to the emblem pieces having been maintained in the mutual positional relationship owing to the runner. According to this technique, the emblem for adhesion thus obtained has a runner by which the individual pieces constituting the emblem are connected to each other so as to maintain the definite positional relationship or posture, which brings about an advantage that the emblem pieces are continuously maintained in the desired positional relationship owing to the runner. Additionally, the emblem pieces and the adhesive unit for emblem respectively having desired shapes are separately obtained and then stuck together. Therefore, it is not necessary to punch out a relatively hard emblem material and a relatively soft double-faced adhesive at the same time. Moreover, it is possible to make a slight difference between the size of the emblem piece and the size of the adhesive unit for emblem so as to make the double-faced adhesive piece invisible from outside or prevent the adhesion of dust and debris. Furthermore, it is possible to adhere an emblem piece, which has a desired shape and is surface-treated, to an adhesive unit for emblem, whereby the difficulties in the surface treatment in the existing techniques as described above can be overcome.
However, the technique as described above suffers from another problem that when the emblem pieces are adhered to the adhesive unit for emblem having been separately produced, highly time-consuming procedures are required in general, i.e., dividing the adhesive unit for emblem into pieces of the respective individual characters or figures by punching out, peeling off the mold-releasing paper, and then adhering the pieces of the adhesive unit for emblem to the emblem pieces that are maintained in a definite positional relationship owing to a runner.